


It's a Long Way to the Bottom

by babylungs



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcohol Abuse, Depression, Gen, One Shot, Pre-Canon, Suicidal Thoughts, minor child abuse, sad as fuck basically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-30
Updated: 2014-03-30
Packaged: 2018-01-17 13:18:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1389118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babylungs/pseuds/babylungs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A look into the Winchesters' rough past, sort of my own little headcanon. (I just want someone to share my pain, okay?)</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's a Long Way to the Bottom

He wasn't looking for the tape when he found it, nestled under the seat on the passenger's side. He'd been searching for the mysterious rattling-clicking noise he kept hearing if the Impala shifted a certain way or if she came to an abrupt stop. John thumbed across Angus Young's face, breath catching in his throat. The chorus of _Live Wire_ played softly in the back of his mind. He let out a heavy sigh, rubbing at his dampening eyes with the thumb and forefinger of his free hand. He thought he'd gotten rid of all things Mary, or at least put them away in a small storage unit back in Kansas.

  
John popped open the case and there lied _Back in Black_ rather than _High Voltage_  because Mary was physically unable to put tapes back in their proper cases. A bitter laugh as he read over the track listing.

  
The sound of feet crunching on gravel dragged John out of his thoughts and he whipped around quickly, still kneeling on the ground. "Did you find it, Dad?" Dean asked curiously, tilting his head to get a look past John's shoulders.

  
"Sure did, kiddo." John replied with the most cheerful grin he could muster, wagging the case in front of his son before he realized what he was doing. Originally, he wanted to hide it, make an excuse to drive all the way back to Kansas so he could lock it up with the rest of Mary's things and the final piece of his heart.

  
"What is it?" Dean's nose crinkled as he squinted.

  
"It's a tape. One of your-- Your old man's. Forgot it was down there."

  
Dean gently snatched the case from his hand and studied it, flipping it over and over. "What's it called? Can we listen to it?"

  
The frown lines between John's eyebrows deepened. He shook his head, reaching for the tape. "I don't think so."

  
Dean jerked away, hiding it behind his back. "Please, Dad!" he whined. "Please please please! I bet Sam would like it!"

  
John laughed softly, shaking his head again as he rose to his feet. "Sam doesn't even know what a tape _is_ , let alone care which one we listen to."

  
"Then for me!" he pleaded in full pout mode. "You never let me pick the music!"

  
"That's because the _driver_  picks the music. Shotgun shuts his pie-hole." he teased, ruffling his son's thick blond hair.

  
Dean scoffed, swatting his dad's hand away. "But I'll _never_  get to drive! Not for, like, a bazillion years!"

  
John rolled his eyes, smiling despite the intense sinking feeling in his gut. Something told him it was a bad idea, but he couldn't, in good conscience, say 'no' one more time. Dean was a good kid, listened well, hardly asked for anything, and when he did, understood that 'no' meant exactly that. He deserved _something_ , even if it was more than he realized he was asking. Too much, actually. But John knelt in front of him, gave an exaggerated eye roll, and groaned, "Fine. You win."

  
Dean's face lit up like Christmas Tree Lane. He bounced on his toes excitedly and said, "Thankyouthankyouthankyou!"

  
John smiled, for real this time, and nodded towards the picnic bench behind Dean. "Yeah, yeah. Go get your brother. He shouldn't have been left alone in the first place."

  
"I could see him just fine!" Dean yelled over his shoulder, retreating to the bench.

  
"Not with your back to him!" John called, watching Sam squeal and hold out his arms as Dean approached, probably making funny faces at him. It wasn't a rare sight, his boys being so happy. He just wished he could share that feeling with them.

 

x-x-x

 

"Damn it, Dean, I told you to buckle up!" John had to shout over the unholy volume of the music. Not that he minded the loudness of it, really, but it could stand to be a little less ear-shattering.

  
Dean rolled his eyes and clicked his seat belt into place, not missing a single syllable of _Hell's Bells_. The way he head-banged and swayed and bounced in his seat, John swore to a god he didn't believe in that Dean was a clone of Mary, minus the rebelliousness (at least for now). That's not to say John wasn't dreading the teenage years that were fast approaching, and yet, still so far away. They had a good three years. Four, if he was lucky. Which he wasn't.

  
Sam seemed disinterested in the music or Dean's imitation of Angus Young. He was too busy with his little nose buried in a book he couldn't read, but liked to pretend he could.

  
John turned the music down, ignoring Dean's protests and eyeing Sam in the review mirror. "Whatcha readin' there, Sammy?"

  
Without glancing up from the page to so much as acknowledge his father, he shrugged. "Something."

  
Dissatisfied with that answer, John retorted, "Sounds riveting. What's it called?"

  
He shrugged again, closing the book partially to look at the cover. "I don't know. There's a frog on the cover, and he's holding an umbrella."

  
John's brows furrowed at that, slinging an arm over the back of the seat to see for himself. "Where'd you get that?"

  
Dean's eyes went wide, like he knew what was coming.

  
Sam met John's eyes with an innocent eyebrow raise. "Dean gave it to me."

  
"Sammy!" Dean growled, glaring a hole through his little brother's head.

  
"What?" Sam squeaked, looking scared and trembling slightly, setting the book on his lap.

  
"Dean." John replied, voice low and angry. The boy wouldn't meet his eyes, but the expression he wore matched that of a scolded puppy. "Where did you get the book?" he asked slowly, almost daring him to say what he thought he was going to say.

  
"I--" He inhaled sharply, already on the verge of tears.

  
"Where." It wasn't a question anymore, but a command.

  
"New Orleans. When we stopped at that gas station." His voice was so quiet, breath catching a couple times as he struggled to get the words out.

  
The Impala seemed to park herself on the side of the road and throw John out of his seat, propelling him toward the other side where Dean was. He jerked the door open, unlocked the seat belt, and practically dragged Dean onto the pavement. Gripping the boy's biceps, his face twisted in anger, he demanded, "Where did you get the money for that book?"

  
Dean's face was aimed at the ground, tears streaming down his flushed cheeks. "I-- I found it!"

  
"Found what? The money?"

  
Dean shook his head, body heaving with deep breaths.

  
"You found the book?"

  
He shook his head again.

  
"So you stole it!" John gave him a hard shake, angling his neck to meet Dean's eyes.

  
"Y-Yes! I stole i-it!" Dean choked out a sob, making the 'it' sound like 'hit'.

  
John made a frustrated noise, reaching a hand back and smacking Dean across one of his red cheeks, deepening the shade instantly. Then he cocked his arm back and swung again, knocking the boy loose from his grip and dropping to the ground with a hard thud. "You should know better!" he yelled, grabbing Dean by the arm and jerking him up until he hovered a bit over the asphalt, his little hand covering his injured cheek, and sobbing harder, tense, like he knew another was coming. "You're supposed to be setting a good example for your brother! What are you teaching him by stealing, huh? That it's okay to take things that don't belong to you? That you can just have whatever you want?" he screamed, their faces only inches apart.

  
"No! I'm sorry!" Dean wailed, heaving violently and struggling to breathe between sobs. "I won't do it again! I'm sorry!"

  
John traced the movement in the corner of his eye to Sam sliding to the edge of the seat, his little legs dangling over the side as he watched, crying tears of sympathy for his brother. "It's my fault!" he tried to yell, but it came out in short bursts of syllables. "Dad, please! It was my fault! I asked him to take the book! I wanted it! It wasn't his fault!"

  
"Shut up, Sam!" Dean threw over his shoulder, glaring at his brother until he stopped talking.

  
John turned his attention back on Dean, taking a deep, level breath, then released his son's arms, making him land heavily on his butt. Without another word, he slid back into the driver's seat, popped the tape out of the player, and chucked it out onto the dirt a good ten feet from the road. He couldn't deal with Mary's music blaring in his ears another second longer. His hands found the steering wheel, grip so tight, his knuckled turned white. He had to breathe.

  
Dean climbed into the back with Sam, quiet little sobs as he buckled his seat belt. Sam rubbed soothing circles in his back, ignoring the way Dean tried to pretend he didn't like it and pulled away.

  
The ride to the next state over was filled with uncomfortable silence, short sentences thrown in here and there. He didn't think about what happened again, just trusted that history wouldn't repeat itself.

 

x-x-x

 

John didn't really have friends anymore, just allies and fellow hunters he trusted enough to watch his kids while he was gone. But if he did have friends, he'd say their names were Jack, Bud, and Jose. Strong, silent types. Bottled or canned, it didn't matter. John wasn't judgmental like that.

  
Dean and Sam were at Bobby's until the end of the week, giving him plenty of time to catch up with his old pals without any disturbances. Set out on the table in front of him was an old cassette tape, black and caked with dirt, part of the corner broken off from the impact. For a while, he just glared at it, tossing back glass after glass after glass and finding himself wondering how he even got here, in this half-star motel with musty sheets and a 99% chance of bedbugs and other equally disgusting things.

  
Mary. That's how he got here. She's the reason for all this. If she had just told him the truth, before he got pulled into her life, into her bedroom when her parents weren't home, probably on a hunt he thought involved deer, _not demons_. If she had just taken a minute or an hour to explain who she was, what her family was, they could have been spared all of this pain, all of this regret, all these broken memories.

  
Would things be different, if he knew? Would he have stayed with her, knowing what she was _really_ running away from? In all honesty, probably not. He loved her, sure, but he was a simple boy from Kansas whose only dream was to open a garage successful enough to hand the keys down to his kids when the time came that he couldn't lie under a car or stand up without assistance. He wasn't built for the hunter life, not really. And yet, here he was, living the life Mary tried so hard to get away from, to keep her _sons_  away from. Helluva lot of good _that_  did.

  
He tried to raise his boys right, he really did, despite their unusual upbringing. But somehow, they turned out so different than he imagined, than he intended. Dean was a good soldier, for the most part. Solid. Good with the weapons at his disposal. Dedicated to protecting the innocent, as well as his brother.

  
Sam, well, he was a completely different story in a completely different book on a completely different shelf. He was a good fighter, strong, like his brother, but his head wasn't in it. He preferred brains over brawn, hated the life of a hunter almost as much as he hated John for putting them in this situation in the first place. If only he knew it wasn't John's fault, wasn't what he wanted.

  
Dean? He was happy to feel the weight of his first .45 in his little hands, the hands of a kindergartner. The kick was a little more than he could stand, but John kept him steady, hands over his as he shot bottle after bottle. The look on his face was priceless, he would have given anything for Mary to have seen it. He only wished it were under normal circumstances, just teaching his boy how to shoot for fun, for sport. Not for his life or the life of his infant brother.

  
Sam was much older than Dean was when John allowed him to even hold a gun, his older brother standing tall with a proud smile when the first bottle shattered. "Alright, Sammy!" he cheered, clapping. Despite his opposition to the act, Sam's face lit up at the praise. He lived to make Dean proud. Not John. Because Dean was his guardian, his protector, his everything. John was just his father, the deadbeat, the asshole who forced them into a life of danger. Nothing compared to the hero that was his big brother.

  
Seventeen years they've been hunting. Seventeen years to the day since John found his wife, burning to death on the ceiling of his infant son's nursery. Seventeen years and the stench of her burning flesh was still fresh, invading his nostrils and coating his lungs with the thick smoke. He downed another drink and pressed the glass to his forehead, condensation cooling his warm skin, his boiling blood beneath it.

  
There wasn't a word for what John was feeling. 'Stressed' didn't even begin to cover it; 'depressed' seemed closer, so did 'empty'. He couldn't count how many times he'd stared down the barrel of his own gun, finger brushing along the trigger, a little more pressure every time the two made contact. The only thing that kept him going was his boys. They needed the closure of finding their mother's killer as much as John did. It wasn't just about revenge, it was about putting down the animal that took away the most beautiful thing in all of creation, that took a mother from her children, a wife from her ever-adoring husband.

  
It wasn't about revenge.

  
At least that's what John told himself over and over and over until he believed it, until he forgot he didn't used to believe it, until he was convinced he was doing this for his -- _their_ sons.

  
So he'd put the gun down. And put the gun down. And put the gun down. And picked up the bottle. And screamed at his younger son for even thinking about leaving, about going away to college. And punched his other son in the face for letting his brother believe he _could_ leave, could abandon them and this life and the mission and his mother. After all John's done for them. How could they? How _dare_ they?

  
It was inevitable, John knew. Sam would leave them, run away to some college he couldn't afford, pretend he didn't know what it felt like to cut off a demon's head. If he didn't feel so betrayed, John would be proud. His boy was smart, cunning, resilient. He stood on his own two feet and stared down an enemy that could easily end his life, and he wasn't afraid. His mother would be proud, but Sam doesn't seem to think about that, to care that he's a good hunter, that his heritage, no matter how he tries to escape it, flows through his veins and dictates his destiny. Even if he did become a doctor or whatever the hell it is he wants to do with his life, he'd end up right back here, fighting the good fight, righting wrongs most people would lose their minds over.

  
But John doesn't have to worry about that, not yet. He's got another six months, maybe, before he has to let go. For now, though, he's going to finish this bottle, flipping his dead wife's _Back in Black_  cassette tape between his fingers and singing along with her in his head.


End file.
